If the president of the UGT in Catalonia and last on the PSC’s list for the Catalan elections, Matías Carnero, offends Carles Puigdemont – “He cried and went into the trunk, and I don’t know if he shit or pissed”, he said- , caning of ERC; if the candidate of the socialists for the presidency of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, speaks of Bajo Llobregat, and not of Baix Llobregat, or of Lérida, and not of Lleida, be damned. Any reason is good for Republicans. And if criticism can be expressed from the city itself, so much the better. Pere Aragonès took advantage of the visit to the Lleida capital to attack the trilingualism proposed by the socialist, and to compare it with Inés Arrimadas, former president of Ciutadans.
The republican sees the similarity in the fact that Illa has “embraced” the Cs language program for Catalan schools. The PSC has gone from participating in the promotion of linguistic immersion 40 years ago to betting on trilingualism. “You propose the same as Inés Arrimadas and speak like Inés Arrimadas”, so he has predicted that the first secretary of the PSC will once again be “the head of the opposition, like Inés Arrimadas”.
Marta Vilalta, Esquerra’s number one on the Lleida list, seconded Aragonès by taking part in the campaign event with a t-shirt alluding to the controversy and which read, in print, “It’s called Lleida”. “Catalan cannot be in the hands of Illa, who copies the model of Cs”, repeated the republican.
That Aragonès uses the Catalan language as a weapon against the PSC is not surprising. ERC has run for the elections with the intention of creating a ministry of language policy to promote Catalan, and has turned this proposal into one of the axes of the campaign.
It is, together with the commitment to a referendum on self-determination, the own funding that since November has been demanding and guaranteeing the welfare state for Catalan citizens.
However, Aragonès is willing to reach an agreement with any force that lends itself to all these conditions. It includes, although it may be paradoxical, Island. He expressed this in the morning at a press conference organized by the ACN.
Aragonès opens up in this sense, but this does not imply that he gives up fighting against Illa. The republican navigates between two waters, between the pull to the socialist and the possibility of a pact after the elections. The PSC is first in the polls, so any excuse is good to try to wear it down.
The scenario of the pact with the PSC must be, as he said, being re-elected president of the Generalitat. “I am standing in the elections to be the president of the Generalitat and not because ERC is a crutch for any other political project”, he said.
The criticism of Illa a Lleida, however, was not placid. About twenty prison officials who belong to a union that did not sign the agreement with the Government to improve security in prisons protested and whistled at the event against ERC for more than 20 minutes.
